Sundance Review: Michael Cera and Sebastian Silva Team Up For Off-Kilter ‘Crystal Fairy’

Sundance Review: Michael Cera and Sebastian Silva Team Up For Off-Kilter 'Crystal Fairy'

The comedic stylings of Chilean director Sebastián Silva and Michael Cera couldn’t have less in common. Silva, whose talent for dark humor became evident with 2009’s Sundance award winner “The Maid” and further solidified with 2010’s “Old Cats,” probes the shadowy regions of domestic life and elevates them to absurd heights. For Cera, whose understated delivery has been ingrained in American pop culture since the advent of “Arrested Development,” every aside comes across like a punchline. Silva unearths humor where appearances would suggest none exist; Cera always seems on the brink of delivering a neurotic joke.

“Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus and 2012,” one of two collaborations between the filmmaker and star premiering at the Sundance Film Festival (the other being “Magic Magic”), showcases this inherent dissonance: While sometimes quite funny, the movie ultimately features a losing battle between two distinct narrative impulses, both intermittently engaging but together at odds with each other. Cera stars as Jamie, a pleasure-seeking young American traveling through Chile and hanging out with a group of locals (played by Silva’s brothers). While plotting to drive out to the northern desert and imbibe the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus, Jamie and his friends attend a raucous houseparty, where the inebriated traveler meets a carefree flower child who calls herself Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffman).

Under the influence, Jamie jumps at the opportunity to hit on a fellow American and inadvertently invites her to join them on their trip the next day, a decision he immediately regrets once morning hits. Through sober eyes, Jamie finds Crystal to be an annoying hindrance to his ideal drug-fused vacation, and constantly rolls his eyes at her hippyish attitude. At first intent on leaving her behind, Jamie eventually gives into pressure when the benevolent Silva brothers accept their new companion, trying to cope with her effusive personality.

But as Jamie’s cruel, self-serving attitude continues to encroach on their situation, it eventually reaches a breaking point. Resorting to thievery in a small town to obtain the cactus for the group, Jamie’s foolish commitment to their goals repeatedly leaves the Silva brothers (only one of whom speaks English) agape, while Crystal makes vain attempts to befriend him.

Cera is typically hilarious throughout the movie, his meandering delivery constantly revealing the character’s insecurities. Initially, he’s a giddy adventurer eager to trip out and run wild, expressing his adoration for Aldous Huxley’s mescaline account “The Doors of Perception” and hoping to encounter similar revelations about himself (especially, he adds, because he’s into “phenomenology and stuff”). But even as he’s willing to dive into that new experience, Crystal brings out his harsher side.

Soon, he’s admonishing her for running around naked in their shared hotel room and recoiling at her hairy armpits. Hoffman’s admirably passionate delivery goes great lengths to provide Jamie with his ultimate foil. Frequently baring all and never quieting down, her tendency to get a rise out of Jamie provides fodder for an enjoyable mismatch that never fully develops.

In Silva’s earlier features, domestic issues gradually build to an explosion of violence and miscommunication, but in “Crystal Fairy” the tension diffuses in a series of random, half-formed events and revelations. As with “The Maid” and “Old Cats,” Silva effectively implies shifts in the attitudes of his characters without overstating their transitions. However, “Crystal Fairy” has little to say beyond Cera’s capacity to transform into an amazingly uncomfortable screen presence, something we already knew.

Criticwire grade: B-

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Cera’s involvement and the film’s positioning at the start of Sundance certainly raise its profile, if not as much as the other Cera-Silva collaboration “Magic Magic.” However, “Crystal Fairy” is bound to find a midsize distributor and decent returns on VOD.